“If you take that dive, Raney, your wife and children won’t follow. They also are a part of humanity, which I think you sometimes forget.” “‘Who is my mother?’,” he murmured. . . . CHAPTER TWO THE TEST _King Henry_: The sum of all our answer is but this: We would not seek a battle, as we are; Nor, as we are, we say we will not shun it . . . SHAKESPEARE: _King Henry V._ 1 Since the first tragedy cast its shadow on the first man, philosophers have taught, in the jargon of their choice, that the past is unalterable, that it is no use crying over spilt milk and that it is a waste of time to job backwards. Unphilosophic man has then returned to the twilit dreamland of might-have-beens. Daily, since the tragedy that darkened my life in the last weeks of 1922, I have asked myself whether I could have done anything to prevent it. I am sane enough to realize that I contributed nothing by what I did; the philosopher blandly assures me that questioning comes too late; and, in spite of all, I continue to wonder what would have happened if I had made a firm stand here or a graceful surrender there. If only, as I walked with O’Rane to The Sanctuary after the opening of parliament, I had thrown my weight into one scale or the other . . . If only, at any time subsequently, I had shewn myself to be what nature failed to make me, a man of action, strong and silent, rapping out decisions like Napoleon disposing an army . . . 2 I had not intended to come into The Sanctuary, but O’Rane insisted that Sonia would be disappointed if I turned back at the door. We found her in the nursery, playing with her elder boy, while the baby was packed protesting to bed in the next room. I had not often been privileged to catch Sonia in a domestic attitude and was ill-prepared for her efficiency. This child in her lap was a beautiful creature, in radiant health and exuberant spirits, with his mother’s brown hair and eyes. There was a lusty crow of delight when O’Rane came into the room; and, as I shook hands with Sonia, the child demanded shrilly that the interrupted tale of the day before should be resumed. “Will you say good-night to David junior?,” she asked me, as Daniel surrendered to the spell of O’Rane’s story. “If he’s not asleep,” I said; and she conducted me into the presence of a wide-awake and fierce Japanese doll, who gripped two of my fingers and demanded truculently what I was doing in his nursery. At three years old, the child had his father’s flashing black eyes and imperious manner. Sonia added that he had also more than his father’s indomitable obstinacy. “Is he equally fearless?,” I asked. For answer she pointed from a green bruise on the child’s forehead to a padlocked grille over the window: